Aida Mollenkamp is back with a brand new season of Ask Aida, and she’s made some exciting changes. We caught up with her to hear all about the new style and to find out what viewer question (almost) stumped this gastronomical guru.

FN Dish: The new season just premiered on Saturday. Loved the first episode! Can you give us a little taste of the rest of the season?CONTINUE READING

When you hear the word “compost”, do you think of crazy hippies or back-to-nature enthusiasts? Well believe it or not, composting has joined the mainstream. It’s easy and rewarding for anyone, and in fact our very own Food Network kitchens has a compost operation to handle the multitude of food scraps that they generate daily. As you can see from the photos, they have small compost bins at each of the kitchen workstations, and then these small pails get emptied into the larger bin at the end of the day. You can find a similar bin at the Food Network Store here. Shows like Ask Aida and Guy’s Big Bite have also started including a compost bucket in their show.

At the moment, we are not currently offering tours to the public, but be the first to find out when we do! Submit your email address and phone number to tours@foodnetwork.com to receive information about potential, future tours.

The people populating your typical set for a Food Network show generally wouldn’t be winning a lot of fashion awards. The crew has a lot of running around to do, and let’s be honest, we didn’t get into this line of work to wear suits and skirts every day. But one notable exception to this rule could be found on the set of Ask Aida Season 2: Executive Producer Irene Wong. It doesn’t matter that the set is an obstacle course of fat cables, Irene will be wearing heels. Tall heels. I rarely seen her in pants, let alone jeans. Fabulous dresses, killer boots, hair perfectly in place. In short, Irene brings the style and puts the rest of us to shame (she’s the Susie Fogelson of the set).

As an example contrast this pic of Irene on set (pic on the left) with with a shot of a more typical wardrobe choice (pic on the right)…

Personally, I think the sneaker selections of Executive Producer Bob Larson and myself are pretty sharp and certainly practical, but I think Irene made us all feel pretty slobby that day.

If you’ve ever tried to talk to camera while wielding a large chef’s knife, you’d know that it’s easy to mistake your finger for a piece of produce. You might also know that thumb wounds seem to bleed disproportionately to the severity of the cut. At least we found that out on set at Ask Aida, Season 2.

It was Shoot Day One and all was going as smoothly as ever, until poor Aida missed the preserved lemon and got her thumb instead. Ever the trooper, she wanted to patch and get back into action, but her thumb was not cooperating. I immediately thought of liquid bandage, but it turns out that stuff doesn’t work well on cuts that are still bleeding. The first aid kit had clotting spray, but that failed as well.

Producer Matt applied pressure, but all that did was make it hurt even worse. It wasn’t until a crew member suggested a wet tea bag that we found our solution. Who knew? Apparently the tannic acid in tea is a natural coagulant. It’s a common remedy after getting wisdom teeth pulled or for problematic cuts on pets. For all that we know about food, our ‘food as first aid‘ knowledge is pretty light! Learn something new every day — particularly on set.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in their burning questions for Aida! As mentioned on a post last week, we just shot a behind-the-scenes piece with Aida on her second season of Ask Aida (for an upcoming FN Dish video) . Because we love our dedicated FN Dish readers so much, we thought it would be fun to give immediate gratification to you guys… that is, use our access to have Aida answer your questions directly!

Now, sadly I only had time to spit out 4 of the 6 questions to Aida during her lunch break (hey, a girl’s gotta eat)…but Eddie and Lyndsay, I promise I’ll waltz, or at least walk, upstairs to our culinary department and get an answer to your knife sharpening and chocolate questions, as well. OR, if Aida is still on your brain, you can go the longer route, and email the show directly. Maybe they’ll pick your question to be answered next season! Email: AskAida@foodnetwork.com.

Without further babbling, here are your questions re-posted with answers straight from the horse’s mouth (not that Aida is a horse):

QUESTION FROM JEFF: I recently got a grill pan that covers two burners. I want to grill steak or chicken but I tried it once and it set off my fire alarm — small apartment. How can I reduce smoke from an indoor grilling pan?AIDA’S ANSWER: So, you’ve got the grilling indoors going on too? I do this all the time! I use a grill pan, a nice heavy, cast iron, grill pan..and so my roommate doesn’t get mad at the smell and so my fire alarm doesn’t go off, I make sure EVERY window is open, turn my ventilator on, and keep ANY extra fans going on as well…. Its all about getting any smoke out of there ASAP and having cross ventilation.

QUESTION FROM WD: How do you know what herb or spice to use with which meat or dish? Is there a book or anything that has suggestions? So I have an idea where to start and what not to use other trying a tasting, possibly ruin a good piece of meat.AIDA’S ANSWER: So lets see, you want to know specific herbs and spices for specifics meats… a really good book to turn to is, Field Guide. It’s called, Field Guide to Herbs and Spices and Aliza Green wrote it…before you know it, after you read this thing, you’ll be a total pro when you walk through your grocery store.

QUESTION FROM NICKIE: Can I make homemade bread and bake it the next day?AIDA’S ANSWER: So if you’ve already made your bread dough, I’d recommend just throwing it in the fridge and then what happens is the yeast that’s in there actually ages and you kind of get a more complex bread flavor. For most dough, it’ll last 12 – 24 hours in the fridge before you bake it off, just make sure you let it come to room temperature first. As far as freezing, you can totally freeze bread dough, just shape it into the shape you want before freezing, but probably not best to do that if you’re going to make it the next day. If you want to make it to bake the next week, just cover your dough with some plastic wrap, and you’re good to go before you decide to bake it off!

QUESTION FROM LINDA: For those of us who’ve seen the light and given up table salt for kosher salt when cooking (or sea salt, or fleur de sel, or whatever) what uses *are* there for table salt?AIDA’S ANSWER: I get this question all the time! And there are still a lot of good uses for table salt because table salt, for one, is a lot cheaper than other salts, and since it’s so small, it dissolves beautifully. So especially when you’re baking, and doing any kind of sweets, turn to table salt.

The FN Dish will be on set with Aida and Noah this week. If you have a food question, post it below. The FN Dish will select a couple of burning questions, will Ask Aida and then we’ll post the answers here on The FN Dish shortly.